Skip to main content

A List of Every Drink in Hemingway's "The Sun Also Rises"


I first read Ernest Hemingway's 1926 novel "The Sun Also Rises" when I was a teenager, and immediately fell in love with it. For the last couple of years, I have had the incredible privilege of teaching a class based around Hemingway in Paris -- while living and teaching in Paris itself, close to the Boulevard du Montparnasse, where most of the action of the novel's first half takes place.

Of the many things that one notices about the book, the colossal amount of drinking is something that stands out. These people didn't just drink like fish: they drank like whales, as if the ocean they swam in was alcohol and they had set themselves the task of drinking the seas of the world dry of it. During my read-through of the book before class started last year, I tried to underline every mention of drink in the book. And now, purely in the interests of science, I am listing the entire menu of booze mentioned directly by name. Some preliminary observations:
  1. Most of this is consumed by the central character, Jake, though the larger quantities (the 7 litres of wine in Chapter 15 or the 15 whiskies in Chapter 19) involve 2 other people. However, the 5 bottles of wine at the end of the book are all pretty much swallowed by Jake.
  2. I have almost certainly missed a few, though the list is pretty comprehensive.
  3. It's not recommended that you turn this into a Hemingway drinking game. A long time ago, some friends of mine tried to have every drink in "The Sun Also Rises" in order, and they were unconscious by the end of chapter 4.
Ch 1:
several fines (brandies)

Ch. 2:
a whiskey and soda
an aperitif

Ch 3:
pernod
2 bottles of wine
several liqueurs
a beer
a cognac
"a drink"

Ch 4:
brandy and soda

Ch 5:
a beer

CH 6:
a Jack Rose
"we had a drink"

Ch 7:
"a glass in her hand"
2 brandies
3 bottles of champagne
a bottle of brandy

Ch 8:
several glasses of liquor
"a drink"
several brandies
a whiskey and soda
a brandy

Ch 9:
"a drink"
a bottle of wine
"another bottle of wine"

Ch 10:
two beers
"plenty of wine"

Ch 11
2 bottles of wine
several swigs from a wine skin
one aguardiente
four unspecified drinks
a pitcher of rum punch
several bottles of wine

Ch 12
2 bottles of wine

Ch 13
3 bottles of wine
3 more bottles of wine
several drinks
several more drinks
"much wine"

Ch 14
a vermouth

Ch 15
a sherry
a gallon wine-skin
7 litres of wine
a bottle of anis
one "big leather wine bottle"
absinthe

Ch 16
several glasses of wine
a bottle of Fundador
"a big glass of cognac"
"another glass of Fundador"
a bottle of Fundador
a glass of amontillado brandy
3 cognacs

Ch 17
a Fundador
a beer
"three more bottles of beer"
"another bottle of beer"
6 bottles of beer
a bottle of Fundador

Ch 18
several bottles of beer
"another big beer"
bottle of wine
several bottles of beer
4 glasses of absinthe

Ch 19
a bottle of Fundador
a whiskey and soda
15 whiskies
bottle of wine
glass of liqueur
2 brandies
a whiskey and soda
2 cognacs
2 martinis
"two more martinis"
"two more martinis"
3 bottles of rioja alta
2 more bottles of rioja alta

Cheers!

Labels:

Popular posts from this blog

Restoring my Printing Press

I've just finished restoring and assembling my large etching press -- a six week process involving lots of rust removal, scrubbing with steel wool, and repainting. Here is a photo of the same kind of press from the Chicago Printmakers Collaborative: And here is a short YouTube video of me testing the press, making sure the motor still works after nearly seven years of lying in storage:
Click here to read more

Brancusi in Plastic

Artist Mary Ellen Croteau is showing these columns made from recycled plastic cartons and lids in the window of the Columbia College bookstore on Michigan Avenue. They are a playful homage to Brancusi's "Endless Columns", with a serious environmental message for our times: Image copyright Inhabitat.com and Mary Ellen Croteau Mary Ellen also runs a wonderful experimental art gallery in a window space in west Chicago, called Art on Armitage . I will be exhibiting a mixed media piece there during August 2012.
Click here to read more

How to etch a linoleum block

Linoleum as a material for printmaking has been used for nearly a hundred years now. Normally, you cut an image out using special gouges similar to woodcut tools, cutting away the lino around the image you want to print. This is called relief printmaking, because if you look at the block from the side, the material that remains stands up in relief from the backing material. You then roll ink with a brayer over the surface of the block, place paper over it, and either print by hand or run it through a press. You can do complex things this way (for example, reduction linocuts), but the beauty of the process is that it is quick, simple, and direct. Incised lino block, from me.redith.com Etched lino block, from Steve Edwards A few years ago, I saw some prints that were classified as coming from etched linoleum blocks, and I loved the textures I saw in them. In the last few months, I've been trying to use this technique in my own studio, learning about it as one does these d
Click here to read more